nickff

>"reviewers say is negative, compare to 56% for owners"

This is likely a misleading statistic, as dissatisfied owners are more likely to write and submit reviews than satisfied users.

The SEC is very good at creating complexity, but has been terrible at protecting shareholders. The SEC has failed to detect and prosecute almost every massive fraud, including Madoff and Enron (despite being tipped off in both cases).

The idiom "idiot box" has been used in Canada and the USA as well; it features in Heinlein's 1961 novel "Stranger in a Strange Land", and is generally cited as having come into being in 1955.

That isn’t enough; there would have to be cuts to social security & medicare. The rich don’t have enough money to cover the federal government’s obligations.

The fact that the only rating published is ‘junk’, and that it was from a small agency tells us quite a lot. Given the fact that Anthropic (or its representatives) likely ‘shopped’ for a rating means that this was the best anyone was willing to give them, and that the larger agencies probably refused to rate them without more information. I would have been surprised if the bankers hadn’t lobbied for the highest rating possible, as higher ratings increase their profits from the IPO.

You're posting from a 1-day-old account...

Lots of things are threats, including long-range stealth bombers, of which the USA already fields 19, and is manufacturing more. Attack submarines are a threat as well, because they can destroy SSBNs, which are the only credible second-strike credibility.

Shipping weapons, ammunition, and other supplies to one side in an active conflict is much more 'provocative' than building a facility located hundreds or thousands of kilometers from the border of a potential adversary.

Most things which differ are not equivalent; pointing that out isn't helpful.

>"They frame anything other than complete capitulation to Russian invasion as crazed aggression against Russia..."

This has been common among many groups for a long time; I recall the GWB administration proposing a missile interceptor system based in Eastern Europe in the mid-oughts, and Democratic Party members in congress opposed it as 'provocative'. The (Liberal) Canadian government of the time opposed that as well as the Alaska based 'shield' as being 'aggressive'.

I suspect this has something to do with (politically self-identified) disempowered groups generally wanting to 'shoot down' initiatives, but the Trump administration seems to have a different motivation.

But Europe isn’t really supporting Ukraine, they’re just providing enough supplies to keep them in the fight. No state seems willing to provide enough assistance to allow for Ukrainian victory, because of the costs and risks associated with that aid. Even countries at little risk of reprisal from Russia are reluctant to do much at all.

As such, all of us doing nothing more than “voicing support” on the internet and some far-away rally, should offer our empathy, and not presume to tell them how much we’re “helping”.

The combination of tax policy disincentivizing capital investment, and regulatory policy making physical things hard to do has shifting increasing amounts of investment into finance, software, and services (and away from resource extraction, processing, and manufacturing).

>"you're responsible for securing your own property, security guards are a thing everywhere."

Maybe Bulgaria differs from most countries, but security guards seem to be mostly theatre. Private actors are generally very limited in what they can do to secure property, and they're usually required to basically call the police and hope the police show up in time to do something, which is often unlikely in either the countryside or industrial areas.

>"Bulgarian Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev told parliament that additional security measures had been introduced at similar facilities, even though responsibility for their protection rested with their owners."

It seems absurd that the government is blaming SpaceX for not securing its property against trespass and vandalism/arson, especially when it seems likely that the violations are by foreign-state-sponsored actors. If this sort of issue is not the responsibility of local police and federal agencies, I am not sure what is. I understand that railways in some countries have their own police, but it is my understanding that SpaceX has not been granted such powers in any country.

I think you might have replied to the wrong comment; my post said nothing about politics or Saudi Arabia.

>"There are actually people who spend their lives working for peace, and die in the effort."

These people would not be eligible for the Nobel Peace Prize, because its rules disallow deceased candidates.

This doesn't help with payments which take place without a card present, such as online and phone payments, which make up a large (and growing) proportion of transactions.

Every level of my government has been defrauded of a significant amount of money (relative to their budget,) in the last five years; I do not support their losing more of my money to fraud.

The problem is the ‘fraud safety’. Your ‘safety’ is likely to be some else’s inconvenience (or vice-versa), and credit cards are all about ease-of-use. Fraud-related costs are also one of, if not the largest single contributor(s) to payment processing fees.

It seems like many of these prosecutors/plaintiffs just want to go after the largest organizations in a given industry, almost irrespective of their culpability. It seems to me that most 'consumer protection' lawsuits seem to be more focused on obtaining publicity for the lawyers than actually doing anything useful, but getting a few settlements from larger organizations is a lot easier than actually going after wrong-doers, so it is a somewhat sensible strategy if the goal is to 'win' as much money as possible.

The Vertical Assembly Building was used for both the Apollo Program and the Space Shuttle, though it had much more ‘headroom’ for the latter. From what I’ve read the rumors of clouds forming inside of it are actually a myth, though there are condensation and airflow issues. I don’t have citations handy as it’s been a while (decade) since I’ve read this.

There is almost no will to prosecute big-business shenanigans until the scheme or organization collapses. See back-dated options during dot-com, SBF-FTX, Libor scandal, etc.

>"I'm fond of pointing out the stat (true as of a year ago) that Massachusetts (I think it's MA?) has more MRI machines than the entire country of Canada."

Long wait times (6-12 months+) for MRIs (due to a lack of both machines and technicians) are a frequent complaint by Canadians.

The number of different taxes is constantly increasing, obfuscating the total tax burden, and making democratic accountability almost impossible. Additionally, tax collections are already at a historical high, while government deficits world-wide are also at record levels, with services on the decline, and no realistic prospect of balancing budgets. This is true for most western countries.

Given the current situation, I do not agree that "we need more taxes", but would welcome your clarifying exactly what you mean.

> "Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. To prevent more people falling prey to fraudsters, Justice Stevens recommends that this amendment should be repealed"

I think you might be missing a sentence or a citation there, because Stevens was an associate justice, never the chief on SCOTUS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_Stevens

You're describing the 'private attorney general' theory/idea, which I'd believe if class-action lawyers were taking less remunerative cases that offered more public benefit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_attorney_general

MS Word was a descendant of Bravo and Gypsy on the Xerox Alto, not ND-NOTIS. NOTIS is an interesting footnote in the history of software, but PARC's influence on early microcomputing is well-known and recognized.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto#Software

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bravo_(editor)

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsy_(software)

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ND-NOTIS

The 'tipping point' for class actions is usually the class certification, not a final judgement by the court. Class actions are absurdly expensive for defendants, largely due to the scope of discovery, and they also cause problems for public companies (for reporting and other reasons), so public companies almost always settle them after the class is certified. On the other side, these settlements often don't offer much benefit to the class, because the plaintiff counsel take a massive fee off the top, pay off the lead plaintiff, and don't have much incentive to do anything for the remainder of the class.

Many places have a ‘small claims court’, which is very similar to arbitration. The issue is that class action lawsuits are very profitable for plaintiff lawyers working on contingency, so those are the cases that get brought.

>"According to Isaacson's biography of Musk, Musk relentlessly challenges the existence of every part in Tesla and SpaceX machines."

This removal of surplus-age is common in the automotive industry, and one of the reasons that cars are such an amazing value. It seems like Musk's remarkable ability to achieve cost reductions (at least in the aerospace context) is attributable to his pursuit of vertical integration. Airframers (aeronautical vehicle designers & manufacturer) are bound by the costs dictated by their component suppliers, especially after a configuration has achieved regulatory approval. SpaceX has managed to avoid being 'held hostage' by pseudo-monopoly suppliers.

Excluding foreign competitors is a classic ‘regulatory capture’-style approach. Regulatory capture is (typically) a ‘bootleggers and baptists’ scenario where there are both good and bad reasons to enact the rules.